Imagine embarking on a journey. You’ve packed your bags, prepared your car for adventure, and loaded your kids. It’s now time to hit the road. You get in the minivan, turn to your husband, and ask, “So where are we going?”
Does this sound likely? Probably not. I can’t think of anything more anxiety producing than trying to prepare for a journey without knowing the destination.
This is why we set goals.
Whether you’re a parent educator or not, you’ve likely set some goals for yourself and your children for this year.
Standards are the year by year goals that educators work towards. They are the goal, the destination, the measurement of success. Like all goals, standards can cause us to have tunnel vision, but they also give us structure.
They help us to know what to focus on this year. They help our children measure their progress.
In a story, Jesus told how his Father will one day turn toward His children and say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” For myself and many of my christian friends, this is the standard of the christian life well-lived.
Standards meet us in all areas of our life. They aren’t necessarily the same for everyone, which is why many educators are against a national core curriculum. Many of us do different things and master different tasks on our individual journeys. Before we embark over the specifics of the current educational core standards, let’s first agree that the idea of having a standard isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is simply a way of measuring; “well done.”